Tuesday, July 29, 2014

“Big
corporations and their super wealthy owners have bought many American
politicians through campaign contributions and lobbying. These politicians have
voted to benefit their donors, not the American public… The Corporate dominated
policies of these sponsored politicians have resulted in the greatest gap
between the American rich and poor since the Great Depression…

They
have made decisions that led to: outsourcing good middle-class jobs;
dismantling our public education system; deteriorating health care that leaves
Americans in danger, sick and broke; the destroying of our environment; the
polluting of our food through deregulation of Big Agribusiness, pesticide use,
and proliferation of Genetically-Modified Foods: the crash of Wall Street and
the Great Recession, from which the bottom 99% of Americans have not yet
recovered.”

Excerpted
from the Book Jacket

In recent years, the
American Dream has proven to be increasingly elusive for most of us. Even if
you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably working longer hours for
less pay.

Meanwhile, millions
of jobs are being outsourced to China,
Bangladesh, India, Vietnam,
Mexico, the Philippines and
other countries that don’t have decent child labor, minimum wage and/or occupational
health and safety standards. Consequently, it’s no surprise that there have
been several suicides at Apple factories by disgruntled peasants paid only
pennies per hour to perform repetitive tasks for 10-12 hours, 7 days a week, with
no compensation for overtime.

What makes Third World nations so attractive to multinational
corporations are the cheap labor and absence of consequences for human rights
violations. Let’s face it, it’s impossible for unions operating in the U.S. to
be as appealing to a company as a totally submissive labor force that’s easy to
exploit with the help of a Communist government.

This is among the critical
factors contributing to the current, domestic economic crisis discussed in
detail in Dollar Democracy: With Liberty and Justice for Some. The insightful tome
was written by Peter Mathews, political science professor, talk show host and
former Democratic Party nominee for Congress in Long Beach, California.

Besides jobs, the
author sets his sights on such hot button topics as education, health care, the
environment, Wall Street vs. Main
Street, and election finance reform. Invariably
weighing in from a progressive perspective, Mathews is dismayed that, “An
American child’s chance of acquiring a quality education depends more on the
parents’ income than on almost anything else.”

Despite the country’s
dire state of affairs, he remains optimistic, and closes the opus with some
viable plan for the people to reclaim the American Dream. The literary
equivalent of a one-man million-man march for equality and justice for every U.S.
citizen.

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KamWilliams.com

The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.